23-year-old Jenn Gardiner of Surrey, BC still remembers where she was when she heard nine-year-old Sydney of the U-11 Vancouver Angels announce that Vancouver would be getting a PWHL team.
“I was actually at the Chilliwack Tulip Festival with my mom and some really close family friends,” the PWHL sophomore told The Hockey News. “I remember we just kind of paused at one part of the field, sat down on a bench and just tuned in for a little bit. That was pretty cool, that I was on home soil when that got announced, and from that moment, I just knew that that was something that I wanted to be part of for this coming season.”
29-year-old Hannah Miller remembers feeling something different when the announcement was made. The forward, who has traveled to Toronto, Russia, China, and more from her hometown of North Vancouver, reflected on what this announcement could mean for the province’s hockey scene as a whole.
“I was ultimately just really proud that our city was going to get to have a PWHL team, and little kids, little girls and boys and their families, were going to get to experience the PWHL live out west.”
Miller and Gardiner are the two members of PWHL Vancouver’s listed roster who originally hail from BC, though the city is also well-represented in the team’s 2025 draft class. Third-round selection Nina Jobst-Smith is also from North Vancouver, while sixth-round pick Chanreet Bassi is from Lake Country and played at the University of British Columbia for six years. The high rate of BC representation in the PWHL as a whole speaks wonders about how far women’s hockey programs have gone and where they’ll be heading now that they have their own professional team.
“There’s so many more youth teams involved now, and academies and minor hockey associations, just providing so much for their athletes. I think it’s just the next step, and in creating such a revolution on the west coast for women’s hockey, it’s so exciting, not even just for the little girls as well, but also for older women,” Gardiner said. “With the landscape of things now, they get to come and support women’s sports, and it’s so cool that they still get to be part of it, just from a different lens.”
One thing that has made this point prevalent has been how the city of Vancouver rallied around the Takeover Tour back in January. Both Miller and Gardiner played at Rogers Arena on January 8, with both players noting how big of an impact this had on themselves and the girls and women in the building watching them.
“That’s what it’s all about. When you look into the stands and you see all those little girls holding their signs, and now they’re aspiring to be a professional player someday, and make a living playing the sport they love. It’s pretty cool,” Miller recounted.
“To get to be able to connect with the girls through all of that, it was so incredible,” Gardiner added. “Then to hear from their perspective, how important the game was to them and how much it inspired them to want to chase their dreams as well. That was just so special, and that’s all we could ever ask for.”
Playing for their home team means something else for Miller and Gardiner. Before they were 29 and 23, they were just like Sydney and the U-11 Vancouver Angels — little girls from Vancouver who wanted to play hockey. Now, as champions of the women’s game for the city of Vancouver, they’ll be role models for the next generation of Hannah Millers and Jenn Gardiners.
“To get to come back and play in Vancouver, where I grew up and fell in love with the game, is pretty special and kind of a full circle moment. I think it’ll really sink in, and I’ll feel all those emotions when the puck drops for our first home game at the Pacific Coliseum,” Miller said. “BC is my home. It’s somewhere that I see myself laying roots and living for a long time.”
“It doesn’t really feel real yet,” Gardiner confessed. “I can’t even believe there actually is a team in Vancouver — a female hockey team. It just seems so crazy. Obviously, as a big fan of the Canucks growing up, you dream of playing in Rogers Arena and playing under those lights and getting to play in front of family and friends. But now to think about next season, and to think about how that’s going to be my job, and I get to do that on a daily basis, is just so exciting.”